In Ascension by Martin MacInnes
Contains spoilers.
I read In Ascension because it won the Arthur C Clarke Award 2024. I’ve read previous winners of that award and really enjoyed them. Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky is one of my favorite science fiction books. So, I was hoping for some great sci-fi. I was disappointed.
The Guardian review of this book says, “this subtle novel uses the tropes of sci-fi” and I think that’s right — it uses the tropes of sci-fi, but it isn’t really sci-fi. Science fiction is interesting because it asks the question “what if?” What if we could reanimate someone — how would they feel? What if we discovered aliens — what would they be like? What if we could make someone super-intelligent? How would their life change?1 This book, annoyingly, raises some extremely interesting questions, and then doesn’t answer them. And it doesn’t even fail to answer them in an interesting way — it doesn’t explore the ideas; they are just part of the plot. For example, a method to travel at close to the speed of light is discovered. Wow that’s interesting! Tell me more! The novel doesn’t. A mission to explore the deep-sea finds a zone where they get extremely deep-sea readings, deeper than the Mariana Trench. OMG, that would be so cool I really want to know more about that! Nope. Algae taken on a spaceship to feed the crew starts to grow unexpectedly fast. Oh gosh that would be fascinating. Why? Just a plot device. They discover evidence of an alien intelligence in our own solar system. Wow! What do they find out? Sorry nope.
1 Frankenstein, Project Hail Mary, Flowers for Algernon.
I enjoyed the start. At the beginning, it had all the features of a good binge book:
- Easy to read.
- Short chapters.
- Hooks — things you want to find out.
The first quarter reminded me a bit of Deception Point by Dan Brown, in which NASA discovers a meteorite embedded deep in the Arctic ice which seems to be of alien origin. I was hooked, for a while. But as the novel went on (it’s big at over 500 pages) it started to become clear that the interesting hooks weren’t really hooks at all. Hooks are satisfying because they keep you reading until you find out the answer. But the questions were never answered. Indeed, they didn’t seem to serve the novel’s purpose beyond making a vague, hand-wavy statement about the nature of life and existence.
I’ll admit I’m probably not the target reader for this novel. As the Guardian review states, it’s subtle, and a lot of that subtlety is to do with emotions and relationships. There is a lot about the relationship between the protagonist and her sister, which I didn’t really understand. Subtle emotional stuff that I don’t really get. But I think a lot of readers of science fiction tend to be like me (in fact, Arthur C Clarke wasn’t good at writing that kind of thing) and they will also find this book a bit disappointing and annoying.
So do I recommend it? It’s well-written. I think a lot of people would really enjoy it. It’s just not for me.